CNN Opts Out of Bush News Pool : Television: Network ends participation with Big 3 in routine White House coverage. ‘It’s simply cheaper for us to do it our own way.’

Cable News Network has decided to discontinue its participation in an experiment to pool the television coverage of daily events on President Bush’s schedule at the White House with ABC, CBS and NBC.

CNN executives said that the arrangement, which has been saving the broadcast networks thousands of dollars each week, has not met CNN’s needs for coverage and has not saved CNN money.

“This experiment has not worked as well for us as it has for them,” Bill Headline, CNN’s Washington bureau chief, said in an interview Thursday. “Between CNN, CNN Headline News and CNN International, we have a great demand to air whatever is coming out of the White House as close to the event as possible. The broadcast networks are focused on producing their nightly newscasts, and they have different requirements for footage, both in terms of what they cover and when they have to have it. We found that it’s simply cheaper for us to do it our own way than try to coordinate coverage.”

For the past two months, the four networks have been experimenting with pooling coverage of White House events such as presidential briefings, “photo opportunities” and other routine events that yield fairly generic pictures. The arrangement has allowed the four to reduce some of their camera crews at the White House. Headline emphasized that CNN’s move did not signal acrimony among the four TV networks. “We’re still a full-fledged member of the network pool (for coverage of major presidential events),” he said. “For example, all four of the networks already are making arrangements for the coverage of the upcoming economic summit.”

The three broadcast networks plan to continue the White House experiment, Barbara Cohen, CBS Washington bureau chief, said Thursday. “We’re disappointed that CNN has decided to opt out. It means that, instead of sharing the costs among four networks, we’ll be sharing them among three,” she said.

Cohen estimated that CBS would have saved $100,000 in a year under the four-network experiment. At a time of cutbacks in the network news divisions, that money is significant. “One-hundred thousand dollars is the equivalent of a two-person crew on the street with overtime, doing reporting instead of covering an event where we’ll all get essentially the same shot,” she said.